Earlier this week, Google announced that Google Goggles, the popular Android app that lets you use your phone's camera to search by taking pictures of objects, is available for the iPhone and iPod Touch in the iTunes App Store. Android users have been able to enjoy Google Goggles since it was released. The app allows you to take a snapshot of just about anything - landmarks, wine bottles, books, and flags - and search for it. For example, photos of landmarks or street signs will give you a Google Map of the area along with relevant articles or Wikipedia entries for it.
To get the app, you'll need to download the Google Mobile App for iPhone from the iTunes App store. Google Mobile allows iPhone owners to enjoy a number of features that Android owners have in stock Android, like the ability to voice search, tap a "my location" button to see where they are at any moment and then search their surroundings, and to quickly search their contacts or other Google services.
The updated version of the Google Mobile App has Google Goggles built in. When you open the app, simply tap the camera icon to open the camera and select the object you'd like to search the Web for. Simply hold up your phone's camera to the object you're interested in, and the app will highlight items it can recognize. You can then tap the item on your screen to learn more. Here's a video of how the app works:
Google is quick to note that Goggles is still in Google Labs and while it's broadly distributed it's still under heavy development. In future editions, Google hopes to make it easier to use the app to identify animals, plants, and other more abstract items that can take multiple shapes and forms. The new Google Mobile app requires iOS 3.0 or later, and the Goggles feature requires an auto-focusing camera, so it'll only work on the iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4.
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